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Sound Stories of People and Places - Express Your Culture through the Sound
Start date: Jan 1, 2015, End date: Jun 30, 2016 PROJECT  FINISHED 

The Sound Exchange is a culture meeting using the unique potential of sound and radio as the basic foundation for an Youth Exchange. The project idea is thus rooted in the belief that audio storytelling can make up a constructive and creative “common third” between 35 people of different ages, backgrounds and skills. Audio as a communication tool is relatively easy to access, easy to produce and easy to distribute. In this sense the media of audio is a democratic one. It is noteworthy that the audio media is not integrated as a part of most European school programs, which educate young people in communicating and expressing themselves primarily through the written word and occasionally visual medias. Audio therefore seemed as an evident theme for an YE wishing to promote non-formal education and to explore alternative ways of self expression, narrating and sharing. The participants were to be introduced to the world of sound and radio in almost every dimension of it. They were to get new inspiration, to have professionals to introduce them to practical and technical aspects of producing sound pieces, to practically explore the media of sound, and to experiment and create together. While the process itself and the creative and social atmosphere during the exchanges was most important, the actual creative outcomes proved to have a valuable effect. It gave the participants a positive sense of succeeding and a confidence in themselves as creators and communicators. The project was divided into two mobilities and an time span in between. The first mobility was set in Denmark and the second in Georgia. 35 participants in the age of 17-30 coming from the countries Spain, Georgia, Ukraine, Estonia, Italy, Denmark and Czech Republic, joined together during these two weeks. The 12th of July the participants met in Copenhagen. Here they were introduced to each other, to the topic of sound, and to Copenhagen through different social activities including a ”sound hunt” around the city. The project week involved different locations, sessions, workshops and events and was a creative and productive week. 7 different groups worked on each of their sound story of 7 minutes – under the head title ”Sound Stories of People and Places”. All pieces were presented at an open event in Copenhagen at the end of the week. In the time span between the two mobilities the participants were encouraged to work on new productions in teams or individually and continuously use each other as sparring partners in the process. In October the participants then met again for a week offering an insight in the more experimental aspects of sound production. The week offered more space for the participants to improvise and the week resulted in many different creative auditive outcomes, which all was presented at the final evening of the week at an event in Tbilisi open to the crowd. Throughout the project the participants have been exposed to a lot of inspiration and experimentation. They have been taking part in various activities involving the topic of sound and radio. Through different sessions and exercises focusing on listening they have trained the ability to concentrate the ears and listen carefully. Different kinds of listening sessions – listening to stories, radio drama, sound art, soundscapes, music etc – was followed up by talks on the auditive impression, the images it unfolded in the mind and the people acquainted in a story. Through interviews, conducted under the guidance of a professional radio journalist, the participant were encouraged to show curiosity about each other and to dig out important or entertaining personal stories to be unfolded in a composed sound story. Through workshops introducing the genres of radio drama and sound design the participants were inspired to play with the media and experiment together. Through field recording, the participants were to discover the characteristics of unfamiliar as well as supposed familiar places. They were to become aware of the audible world around them – and make music out of it. Both interviews and field recording were intended to be an exercise in meeting people and places with a non-prejudiced and open attitude . Furthermore it worked as a way to let the participants realize the opportunity tell unheard stories. In general the project deals with the topic of representation, both personal and cultural, in an experimental level by giving people the chance to represent themselves through the media of sound but also by giving them the task to tell a story of a “stranger.” Throughout the project the participants have been provided with the necessary skills and confidence to start their own follow up projects back home and to spread the idea of using sound. To sum up the main aim of the project; We wished to raise cultural awareness, to gather people around a possible new shared area of interest, and to stimulate creativity through a learning by doing approach to the media of sound.
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